She heard a thud as Gramma Amy dropped a load of wood collected from the nearby forest, and she imagined the creak of Gramma Amy’s knees beneath her aproned trousers as she coaxed the morning’s flame. She listened for her grandmother’s stoking of the cooking fire and the responding snap and sputter in the fire pit, blazing of its own accord, and finally the spank of palms as Amy patted the doughy mixture for Indian bread between the flat of her hands.
Dawn was barely upon them, a gentle stirring of all creatures on the land they’d come to settle, and yet Rose resisted leaving her sleeping cocoon, though summer’s tail neared, and even early sun made everything too hot by half. She wasn’t lazy exactly, but in need of prolonging the heady significance of this day. She corrected herself. Actually, yesterday. August 5, 1865. Yesterday was the official day to remember, but yesterday had been too full of rumor and uncertainty as to the truth of the news, and today was the first opportunity to bask in the wonder. So many changes in the last few years, one on the heel of the next.
Rose heard Grampa Cow Tom roll over on the buffalo hide he’d been presented when named chief, the most cherished possession in the household, and then her grandfather cleared his throat, long and hacking and harsh, a sound she well knew could signal postsleep but maybe only prewake. She waited for him to declare himself further, but he showed no indication to rise. There was a beat of energy flowing throughout their small compound, from grandparents to parents to children, and she decided the time had long passed to embrace her duties. She elbowed Elizabeth awake.
“Come on, sleepy.”
Elizabeth tried to turn over and go back to sleep, but Rose wouldn’t allow it.
“It’s a big day. We’ll have fun,” she promised.
Rose guided her reluctant sister outside, wiping the sleep from her own eyes as they slipped into the open air. Their mother was there already, scraping corn kernels from a stack of cobs for a fresh batch of sofki.
“Long past time,” Ma’am said to Rose. “Lazy isn’t likely to ever get you married.”
“Leave the girl be,” said Gramma Amy. “We were all up past late.”
Her mother motioned toward the corn, jaw hard, and Rose took up the knife in her stead.
Ma’am brushed back the tangles of Elizabeth’s dark hair with one hand. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get some milk from the cow and fight that rooster for some eggs.”
Gramma Amy was about her tasks, rock-pounding corn kernels, adding the maize to the pot, stirring the thick stew. But this particular morning, Rose had no patience for silence. The day was too important, and her mother wasn’t here to tell her to hush, to be seen and not heard.
“When’s Grampa Cow Tom getting up?” Rose asked.
“The man deserves his rest,” said Gramma Amy. “Let him sleep. No one’s to pester him today. No one. Hear?”
Rose nodded, disappointed. She wished her grandfather awake and in a mood to tell this new story. He was so often absent, for hours or days or even months at a time, constantly swallowed up with elders in business dealings and important strategy meetings. He had been gone this last time for three days, and first word delivered to them about the victory yesterday hadn’t come directly from her grandfather, but from a freedman farmer neighbor who made his home on the patch of land next to theirs. Cow Tom hadn’t returned to the compound until the middle of the night, and the sea of bodies in the tepee shifted and rearranged to accommodate him.
“Is it true?” Rose asked. She pushed a stack of spent corncobs into the dirt to save for the shoat and began husking a new pile. Nothing went to waste.
“Appears so,” Gramma Amy answered. “Soon as you’re done with those ears, bring out a jar of cha-cha from the smokehouse.”
“Cha-cha cabbage? For breakfast?” Today truly was special.
“The least we can do on Emancipation Day. Appreciate the import, girl.”
Last night, her grandfather stumbled into the tepee and without bothering to shed tunic or trousers, found his sleeping spot. He whispered to Gramma Amy, but anyone awake could hear. “They voted us in. Today, forevermore, is Emancipation Day.” His voice was heavy with fatigue, but there was conquest in the delivery.
Though Rose waited for more, she heard only a growing chorus of snores. Often, Grampa Cow Tom sat all day with other men, sometimes red, sometimes black, sometimes white, straight-backed and solemn, talking, smoking, arguing, and once he sat with Rose and tried to explain to her what the men talked about. All those meetings of his, his dreams of living as black and Creek, both at once in equal measure, all those words finally bore fruit.
“Emancipation Day,” Rose repeated.
“Creek Council finally voted us African Creeks full citizens. Colored or red, born slave or free, now we’re members of the tribe.”
“All Creeks?”
Gramma Amy shook her head. “Not the ones went Confederate. Only Loyal Creeks. Now they’re to treat us Indian as anybody else.”
Gramma Amy picked up a discarded ear of corn on the ground for inspecting. Too late, Rose saw the short row of yellow kernels still clinging to the cob. She braced for her grandmother’s rebuke, whether slap or tongue lash.
“Pay attention, girl. Don’t matter whether you black or Creek, no hog gonna eat better than family.” Amy took her knife and scraped the stubborn kernels onto her pile and tossed the cob to the ground. She went back to task with her pounding, humming low.
Yes, this was destined to be a good day, full of celebration and forgiveness both.
Chapter 41
MIDDAY, AND STILL her grandfather slept the sleep of the dead. Rose made excuses to pass the tepee, on her way to the newly built smokehouse put up at the beginning of summer, on her way back from picking blackberries beyond the pasture, off to the Canadian to fetch water, but each trip, all she heard from the tepee were snores. She daren’t disturb her grandfather, or her next brush with Gramma Amy wouldn’t go so well as this morning’s.
As she wove a basket alongside Elizabeth, a lone man on foot entered their compound from the north side. Only one person on earth had such a strut, and if she’d been a slip of a child, and not so close to a grown woman, she would have given in to impulse to run to him full tilt.
The appearance of Harry Island always broke up routine, and everyone young and old competed for his attention. He enjoyed his popularity too, always playing to the crowd, whether audience of one or dozens. He had gained weight since she last saw him at Fort Gibson, a more healthy fullness to his bronze cheeks, his long wooly hair pulled back and almost tamed by a leather cowhide strip knotted at the base of his neck, his moccasins more new than old. She supposed they must all look better than they did in those dark days. Sometimes she thought overmuch, she decided, and ran to intercept him before all the others realized he was here, Elizabeth fast on her heel.
“Uncle Harry,” Rose said. She turned shy, close enough to catch the stink of the road on him.
“What now? Who is this lady in front of me? Do madam have more children at home, or just this one?”
“It’s me, Rose,” she protested. “And this is Elizabeth. She’s not my child, she’s my sister . . .” Rose let her voice trail off as she realized he had funned her.
“Rose? You sure? Because the only Rose I know would surely offer a poor, tired man who walked all the way from Grand Fork some water and a bit of biscuit.”
“Yes,” said Rose. She was reluctant to leave his side. Harry Island popped up no matter where they lived, and was looser with his storytelling than Grampa Cow Tom, at the ready to share their adventures as young men.
She walked with him farther into the compound, and Elizabeth slipped her hand into Uncle Harry’s.
“Leave him be,” Rose warned her sister. “Men don’t like being bothered.”
Uncle Harry stopped to appraise the child. “This one is beauty in the making,” he said.
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Rose fought not to read anything into a comparison. Her younger sister was stunning, and fawned over for her ebony hair, her lively eyes, her smooth, dark skin.
By the time they reached Gramma Amy at the fire pit, they’d attracted followers, but Elizabeth had no intention of giving up her place beside Uncle Harry, playing with the soft of his whiskers, a-pout when he talked to anyone else. Gramma Amy dished their visitor up a big bowl of sofki and cha-cha, and he lit into the still-warm stew as if it were a feast.
“Go rouse your grandfather,” Gramma Amy said to Rose, as beguiled as everyone else with Uncle Harry. “Time to see in the day.”
Rose sped to the tepee and pushed at her grandfather’s shoulder, quickly standing back. Sometimes Grampa Cow Tom woke hard, and woe to the innocent standing in the way when he came to himself from a dream.
“Yes?” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. His tone was neither friendly nor harsh, reserving the right to go either way.
“Harry Island’s come.”
Cow Tom opened his eyes then, looked her through. “Here?”
“At the pit, eating.”
Her grandfather was up, not bothering to brush the twigs from his hair or tongue the night fuzz from his teeth.
“Why didn’t you say so, girl?” But his tone this time was full of tease. “We got celebrating to do,” he said, and she followed behind, running to keep up.
Harry Island whooped when he saw her grandfather come across the clearing. “We done it!” he proclaimed, and Grampa Cow Tom’s grin in response was as wide as Rose had ever seen.
“We Creeks, proper,” he said.
She thought the two men ready to hug, to lock arms in satisfaction to commemorate the moment, but they held back from that public display.
“We can’t drink, and we can’t fiddle. How we gonna mark the largeness of the occasion?” asked Uncle Harry.
“Remember Florida? That military parade?” Grampa Cow Tom said, pulled into the excitement. “We could rig one up our own self, with marching. Decorate the mule. All the little ones taking a part. Mr. Lincoln freeing the slaves, winning the war, the Creek Council meeting, and us, brought in as members of the tribe. Mix in some Creek stomp-dancing. How about that? And food. Whatever we have.”
Rose held her breath, waiting to see if this met with Harry Island’s approval. Even Gramma Amy, whose job it was to make the food last, parceling out stingy portions today in anticipation of tomorrow’s want, paused motionless.
“Perfect,” Uncle Harry said. “Long as the part I play is head of the Creek Council.”
“Then let’s get to work,” her grandfather said. He gave Rose a playful pinch on her cheek. “What say we choose Rose here to carry the flag? We make our own traditions.”
Rose could barely recall such pride and happiness.
Chapter 42
ROSE FOUND A clean break in the fence line and doubled back on her pony to discover one of the laying hens gone. She checked the inside of the henhouse, the condition of the setting straw, mostly undisturbed, and noted the faint trace of footprints in the mudded grounds outside.
“Doesn’t look like coyote,” she reported back to Grampa Cow Tom. “More likely wild Indian, hungry and on the prowl.”
“Not sure what annoys me more, repairing this fence or the prospect of a meatless supper down the road.”
“But chicken tonight, still? For the white men?”
Her grandfather grunted. “Agriculture agents. From the United States government.”
“Agriculture?”
“Farming. Crops. They say they want to see how different tribes use the land.”
“They’ll try to make us change our ways?” asked Rose.
“That’s my Rose. Always suspicious.” Grampa Cow Tom removed the broken fence post, putting the plank off to the side. “The agents don’t present threat or gain for us at this moment, but we’ll show off a little anyway what we’ve managed in the three years since war’s end. You have to learn how to talk to white people, Rose. Don’t give them too much power, but don’t cause them such unease they feel the need to respond in kind. Remember, keep to your own, but curry favor when and where you can. You never know when a friend comes in handy, and with the government, you can never be sure what they might be up to. So, hen lost or no, tonight we offer chicken to our guests.”
“I best be getting back to the house to help,” said Rose. “Ma’am’s on the third day of a fresh batch of sofki and everyone’s cleaning the ranch house top to bottom.” Rose ran her fingers through her pony’s mane. Her grandfather had returned not long ago from a month at Fort Smith in Arkansas, representing the Creek Freedmen. He’d been in a good mood since. “Or I could stay and help you mend the fence.”
Her grandfather hesitated. “A few minutes more out here won’t hurt,” he said.
“Ma’am won’t like it though.”
“You’re with me.”
Rose set straightaway to the shed, took up the stump ax, and split four lengths of wood for fence rails. She brought them back to where her grandfather waited.
“I won’t always be here, Rose.”
She froze. “Where you going now?”
“My time on this earth runs down. Don’t fret. Not now, but someday.”
Rose struggled to find words, but none came. She couldn’t imagine a world without her grandfather in it. She thought of the night at Fort Gibson when Grampa Cow Tom came back to their camp and found Granny Sarah still and dead, and the bottomless well of his grief. She thought of the brightness Grampa Cow Tom brought to her days, no matter where they lived, how good or how bad the condition. She was sixteen, and sometimes she felt as if her grandfather was the only man who knew her. Who truly loved her. Who would ever love her.
“You understand the land, Rose. The sacrifices we have to make for the land. Land, family, friends, tribe. That’s all we have. That’s all we need.”
“Are you sick, Grampa?”
“Not sick. Just getting you ready.” He positioned the split rail in the fence, notching the wood in the groove at the post. “Go on. I’ll finish up here. Help your mama now.”
All the way to the ranch house, Rose thought about the last three years, how hard they’d all worked to build up this ranch. For the first time in years, there were younger men with them to help—some straggled back from the war with a limp or a distractedness or a new worldliness to their face, but useful.
Even so, her grandfather continued to include her in his everyday doings whenever he was home, whether tending cows or ginning grain or riding the fence line. Occasionally, he even let her sit off to the side when he met with other men, talking of the future of Canadian Colored Town. Her grandfather was an important man here, which made Rose feel important too. And time spent with Grampa Cow Tom meant less time under the disapproving eye of Ma’am.
Small puffs of dirt exploded in the air each time Gramma Amy whacked one of the rugs and quilts hung over a taut clothesline behind the ranch house. Rose waved to her grandmother as she passed. One of her aunts scraped at dirt caked on the outside of the real glass windows and, pail in hand, soaped them down after with a coarse scrap of rag. The moment Rose entered through the back door of the ranch house, her eyes teared and she smelled a sharp burn. Her sister Elizabeth sat by the fireplace, where the big, black pot hung above the flames, humming, playing by herself, some private game with beanbags.
Rose rushed to take up the long spoon and tried to stir the bubbling mixture. Great chunks of charred corn began to surface, and the burned smell overwhelmed. “Elizabeth, haven’t you been tending at all?”
Elizabeth looked up, guilty. “Ma’am’s going to be mad,” she said.
“Didn’t Ma’am tell you to stir?”
Elizabeth’s eyes grew narrow and her chin quivered.
“I’m sorry, Rose.”
Both Gramma Amy and Ma’am came at a run into the room at the same time, sniffing at the air. Gramma Amy carried in the quilts she’d cleaned and Ma’am’s arms were full of firewood.
“Smells like the whole house is going up in flames,” Ma’am said, as her grandmother threw open the doors to let the smoke out.
“Sofki looks to be ruined, Ma’am,” Rose said.
Elizabeth started to cry in earnest, great gasping sobs, equal parts fear and performance. She positioned herself as far behind Rose as she could, trying to hide herself, grabbing hold of Rose’s tunic and refusing to let go.
“It’s my fault, Ma’am. I should have watched her,” Rose said, diverting her mother’s disapproval from Elizabeth.
“Three days wasted, and no time to start again,” Ma’am said to Rose. “Short on looks and long on clumsy. No husband will want the likes of you.”
“Malinda,” Gramma Amy said sharply. “Enough. We’ve time to make corn stew instead.”
“Always off doing man’s work,” Ma’am grumbled. “Putting on airs, trailing behind Papa Cow Tom. Well, there’s corn in the crib for you to start over by yourself. Be done by supper.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“First take this mess and throw it to the hogs.”
Elizabeth sniffled. “I want to help Rose.”
“See what you’ve done to her?” said Ma’am, prying Elizabeth from behind Rose. “No need making the same mistake twice. Elizabeth, you come with me, help me put fresh linen on the beds.”
Ma’am led Elizabeth from the room, the girl piteous in the looks she threw Rose over her shoulder.
Rose wrapped her hands in dishrags and wrestled the hot, heavy pot off the fireplace latch. She heard the sizzle as the pot brushed her arm, and the jolting sting threw her off-kilter. She managed to right the pot before she spilled too much of the spoiled sofki on the kitchen floor, but an angry pucker marked the burn spot on her skin. She scanned frantically to make sure her mother hadn’t seen. But it was only Gramma Amy in the room.